Conscious Venture Partners Raises $15.8 Million for Conscious Venture Fund II, led locally by Kevin Plank's Sagamore Ventures

The investment highlights Baltimore as a thriving investment region, with local and national participation

BALTIMORE, July 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Conscious Venture Partners today announced Conscious Venture Fund II has raised $15.8 million of its $50 million goal. Sagamore Ventures - the investment arm of Under Armour founder Kevin Plank - leads the local investments with a $2.5 million commitment to the Conscious Venture Fund II, which is on the path to become the largest minority managed fund in Baltimore City.

The Fund's growth supports the emergence of Baltimore's innovation ecosystem, particularly in the arena of companies using innovations to create a more equitable society or "Equitech."

"Despite the amazing talent and technology we have in the US and specifically here in Baltimore, new innovations for things like the delivery of preventative care, better mental health outcomes, access to technology and healthy food and predictive analytics for under-served communities are clearly needed if we are to continue the standard of living - and give all our citizens access to such - that we so dearly appreciate and enjoy in America," said Jeff Cherry, Founder and Managing Partner of Conscious Venture Partners. "COVID has shown us how much work we have to do to create a more equitable society and economic system."

Conscious Venture Partners seeks out minority and women founders to invest in entrepreneurs that others are ignoring for all the wrong reasons. They support companies that are using technology to break down barriers to access and create a more equitable society, including in the healthcare, food, technology, media, mobility, and education industries.

The strategic investment from Kevin Plank's Sagamore Ventures is part of a $10 million overarching set of commitments made by Sagamore and the Port Covington Development Team, stemming from an agreement with local stakeholders, to help build capacity and improve the landscape for Baltimore City minority and women-owned small businesses.

"Jeff Cherry and Conscious Venture Partners share our commitment to creating a positive impact in Port Covington- and all of Baltimore. The Conscious Venture Partners team has a proven track record of identifying and supporting diverse and innovative Baltimore entrepreneurs, which is critical to the future of the city," said Kevin Plank, Founder of Sagamore Ventures.

Conscious Venture Partners believes businesses that practice a more holistic or "Stakeholder" form of capitalism create financial, as well as societal, value. As such, most companies funded by Conscious Venture Partners are graduates of its Conscious Venture Lab accelerator program. Local companies looking to receive funding are encouraged to apply for the upcoming cohort of the Conscious Venture Lab here: https://www.f6s.com/cvlabcohort9. Applications for the current cohort are being accepted now.

Conscious Venture Partners' successes - including the eight cohorts graduating from the Conscious Venture Lab's accelerator program, and a newly designed digital platform in partnership with Annapolis based FounderTrac - have given investors confidence in Conscious Venture Fund II and the Baltimore region as an investment market. The funds raised by Conscious Venture Partners support businesses like Fearless Sports, a Baltimore-based social impact clothing company founded by Baltimore Business Journal Power 10 winner, Delali Dzirasa; Outlook Enterprises, the first ever digital production studio to be located in East Baltimore, founded by ex-Baltimore Raven Trevor Pryce; and HeyZRO, a unique metaverse e-commerce platform which is one of the first to be founded in Baltimore by a black-woman technologist. 

Joining Plank and Sagamore Ventures is repeat Conscious Venture Partners investor Point Field Partners, the investment arm of Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, with additional investments being made by other prominent local investors including Brown Advisory, Capital Funding Group, Robb Merritt, Mary Miller and Guy Filippelli. The company's recent successes and list of growing local investors have garnered national attention and proven to be a catalyst for interest in Baltimore from outside of Maryland, including a recent $5 million commitment from the UFCW – Northern California Employers Joint Pension Plan, a Concord, California based pension fund.

"Mr. Bisciotti certainly believes that equity and prosperity go hand-in-hand. This is one of the reasons we were so excited to invest and partner with Jeff and his team at Conscious Venture Partners" said Ryland Sumner of Point Field Partners. "It's all about their mission and innovative approach to community investment, This is the way you build communities: investing through a lens of equity to create financial as well as societal returns."

Mary Miller, Baltimore investor and former T. Rowe Price executive, echoed: "This is the kind of ground-up investment opportunity Baltimore needs. I'm excited to see the impact these entrepreneurs will have in their communities."

The continued flow of investment capital into the fund affirms the shared value of giving significant opportunity to women and minority-owned businesses. Cherry believes supporting entrepreneurs in communities of color that have been disproportionately impacted by lack of access to capital and networks represents an opportunity to provide better services in those communities and to invest in new innovations that are likely to have broad-based applicability in very big markets.

"We believe that Conscious Venture Partner's approach to entrepreneurship is forward-thinking and fantastic for our community," said Mike Hankin, CEO of Brown Advisory. "We are proud to partner with Jeff and his great team and hope that, together, we can help support emerging businesses in Baltimore, as well as the broader start-up ecosystem."

The Conscious Venture Fund II is established to do what they call rolling closes, so the fund will grow and new investments will be added as additional capital is committed. The final close is expected to be sometime in the third quarter of 2022.

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SOURCE Sagamore Ventures